US renewable growth puts them on par with nuclear

The annual figures for how the US generated electrical power were released on Monday. Coal, wind, and solar power all saw big jumps compared to the previous year, as the country moved out of the swine flu. There was a drop in hydroelectric production due to the widespread dry spell.

The two big stories are renewable energy and solar. Three years ago, wind only started out producing hydro. Over the last 10 years, solar has gone from a rounding error to 4% of annual production.

Living fossils

It will be the first increase in coal use since the Obama administration took office. The amount of electricity generated by coal was up by 16 percent compared to the previous year. This is likely to be a short term change. Coal power in the US has gone from 44 percent to 22 percent in the past decade, as the number of coal plants has dropped by half.

In the same period, natural gas has gone from providing 25% of US electricity to just under 40%, with the number of megawatt produced using gas rising by over half. Over the past year, it has seen a small decrease, something that has happened two other times.

Predicting the future of gas in the US is hard. It still beats coal and nuclear in many parts of the country, but it's no longer as strong as it used to be. Before the war in Ukraine increased the profits to be earned there, exports of liquified natural gas to Europe had already grown greatly. It's not likely that gas will see anything like the plunge that coal has gone through.

Diesel and other products are used in a lot of things in the US. All of these carbon-emitting sources accounted for over 60 percent of the US's electricity in 2021, up 3 percent from the previous year, mainly due to the use of coal. Carbon-emitting sources delivered over 70% of the country's electricity ten years ago. The drop has been caused by renewable sources.

Stuck in idle

For the past 10 years, nuclear power has been stagnant. About 19 percent of the country's electricity was produced ten years ago. It produced 19 percent of the country's electricity in 2011. The number of nuclear plants has gone down over the last 10 years. The closed plants were usually on the small side and the new reactor was completed at an existing plant.

Nuclear is the largest source of electricity free of carbon emissions in the US and the Biden administration is trying to keep it that way. Nuclear will produce roughly the same amount of power as wind, solar, and hydro in 2021.

If it hadn't been for the decline in hydro production, it would already have been surpassed. The number of hydroelectric plants has not changed since 2011; however, the electricity production has decreased since last year. A 12 percent year over year drop in hydro production is not unusual. It's not clear if we can expect a rebound in hydro production in the foreseeable future because a lot of the western US are reaching critically low levels.